The etymology of “the whole nine yards” is a total mystery. Anybody who tells you that they know its origin is either lying or unknowingly parroting an urban legend. The number of feet of fabric required to make a suit? Number of cubic yards of soil removed to dig a grave? Number of cubic yards …
Tag Archives: linguistics
You say Missouruh, I say Missouree.
There are two ways to pronounce “Missouri”—neither is right and neither is wrong. It’s become a geographic, political, and generational shibboleth. This article doesn’t mention Nevada, but that’s a state that seems equally divided (“Neh-VEH-duh” versus “Neh-VAH-duh”). →
Links for May 13th
New York Times: Vitaly Borker of DecorMyEyes Pleads GuiltyYou'll remember this jackass as the guy who ran a series of scam businesses, physically threatened anybody who complained, and bragged to the Times that he loved web-based complaints because they helped his Google ranking. He received the Google death penalty a few days later, he was …
Links for March 8th
Wikipedia: Adjective OrderThe "red, big ball"? Of course not—it's "big, red ball." There's an adjective order in English: quantity, quality, size, age, shape, color, proper adjective, and purpose. One has a "nice, little, old, white, brick house," not a "brick, old, little, white, nice house." City Pages: Inside the multimillion-dollar essay-scoring businessThanks to NCLB and …
It’s all X to me.
In English, when we want to describe something as incomprehensible, we might say “it’s all Greek to me.” From the always-excellent Strange Maps comes a diagram of what language people use in place of “Greek” depending in their native tongue. Romanians say “it’s all Turkish to me,” while Turks say “it’s all French to me,” …